Health insurers have identified €18.7m in deliberate healthcare fraud last year, double the amount in 2013.

Most of the fraud involved personal care budgets and psychological care, sector organisation ZN says.

Insurers only describe fraud as a deliberate attempt to break the rules and benefit financially, and do not include mistakes with medical bills, ZN says. For instance, when a care worker bills for more hours than actually worked.

Last year, insurers reclaimed €449m from healthcare providers which they had paid out wrongly.

Around €37.7bn was paid out for the basic healthcare package in 2014. Specialist care in hospitals and independent treatment centres accounted for 59% of the total.